Trudeau gives Grits a financial boost

Trudeaumania has been beneficial to the Liberal Party of Canada, according to new data released today by Elections Canada. This quarter, the party received a boost of nearly $1 million dollars.

Since Montreal native Justin Trudeau took the reins last spring, the party has gained more than 15,000 new contributors donating an average of $77 per person. Trudeau raised more than $2 million dollars during his leadership campaign, which he won with 78 percent of the vote in mid-April.

Unfortunately for the Grits, registered associations gave the party half what they did last quarter, and total transfers from leadership contestants dropped from more than 300,000 to almost 9,000. Elections Canada officials suggested this difference could be attributed to the mandatory $75,000 entrance fee collected by head office last winter.

Although the Liberals have been topping some of the recent polls, their financial gains in the last quarter are no match for the reigning Torys. Since June, the Conservative Party has raked in $4.86 million, almost twice what the Grits rounded up. This period would have included registration fees for the postponed Conservative convention in Calgary.

But the Conservatives have some ground to make up too. The party received fewer contributors than previous non-election years, down to nearly 26,000 from between 32-34,000.

And despite the NDP’s gains in recent polls, the opposition party continues to have among the lowest amount of contributors and finances at 18,846 and $1.38 million, respectively.